


When the Water Turns Dark

by VagabondDiesel



Category: Free!
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Ending, Blood and Injury, Depression, Drowning, Implied/Referenced Suicide, M/M, Major Character Injury, Some Descriptions May Be Disturbing, You Have Been Warned
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-15
Updated: 2015-09-05
Packaged: 2018-04-14 19:37:42
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,599
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4577301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VagabondDiesel/pseuds/VagabondDiesel
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The only thing he had the ability to focus on was that question, the one that had long since drained him of his lifeblood, wearing away at his flesh until it had chewed through to gnaw at his bones.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>Rin drank deeper, forcing himself to swallow several mouthfuls of the lukewarm alcohol before he tore the glass from his lips, trying to stave off the awful, tedious replaying of that day.</i>
  <br/>
  <i>It came anyway.</i>
</p><p>Rin blames himself. (a story about endings and acceptance)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Rin's Regret

**Author's Note:**

> First off, **MASSIVE TRIGGER WARNING - SUICIDE, DEPRESSION**.  
>  That being said, I started writing this after a thought process I had while I was watching Free! Eternal Summer (so yes, some spoilers). Around episodes 9/10, it struck me that Haru was displaying some pretty alarming behavior - and yet, nobody really moved to address it. Then, after overhearing Rin's discussion with Sousuke, he has suddenly...fine?  
> So here's an imagining of an ending where Nanase Haruka was never really fine at all. 
> 
>  
> 
> _I still press your letters to my lips_  
>  And cherish them in parts of me that savor every kiss  
> I couldn't face a life without your lights  
> But all of that was ripped apart when you refused to fight  
> Slipknot – Snuff

       He remembered that day with unrivaled clarity. After all, how could it be forgotten when every detail, every interaction had been reviewed and compared with the recollections of others, all of them vainly trying to piece their own individual parts into a greater whole, searching for some explanation in the supplementation.  
  
       But even after every detail was shared, every possible angle covered, their answers rang hollow. It seemed that no amount of discussion could answer the question that hung over their heads like a great suspended load. These days, he had begun to fear knowing the answer even as he continued to search for it, dreading the moment when it would come into full focus through the shockwaves that resonated throughout the small community.  
       He had the feeling that if he could ever understand why, he would not be able to bear the weight of such a truth.  
  
       Would it crush him as well? Could he even begin to recover from this? Questions that it was already too late to ask – he could feel their answers sinking him deeper by the day. And yet he was too involved to stop, rather like a dog licking a healing wound raw and bloody, tearing it deeper every day.  
  
  
       The alcohol was supposed to help. Wasn’t that the reason why the broken-hearted took their lonely seats at the bars?  
       But it wasn’t helping. Not at all. There was no romance in this, choking down drinks mixed far too strongly while attempting to resist the urge to gag.  
       Rin’s hands shook as he filled the glass once again, spilling over his own fingers. Each one so far had contained more alcohol than the previous one. At this point, the tall cup was almost half full of Jägermeister, the added cranberry juice doing little to offset the strong, thick flavor of the liquor.  
       He drank deep and shuddered, reaching for a ready bottle of water.  
  
  
       Drinking in the dorms was not condoned, but nobody was intervening with his solitary, late-night binge. Sousuke was recovering from his reconstructive shoulder surgery at his parent’s house, leaving Rin alone. A few hours prior, light, hesitant footfalls approached the locked door. Nitori tried the immobile handle, calling Rin’s name softly before leaving a few moments later, deterred by the lack of response and the absence of light shining from the gap beneath the door.  
  
  
       Technically, Rin wasn’t supposed to be here anymore. Technically, he was supposed to be preparing for the big move back to Australia. Technically, he had planned on being there by now, re-acquainting himself with the country and priming himself for his first semester training with the swimming powerhouse at his new university.  
       But things don’t always go to plan, do they?  
       He only had a week – no, less than that, before he was expected to be there. He didn’t know where he had put his plane ticket, and he didn’t care. The rest of the graduating class had packed up their dorms and left by now, but Rin’s possessions remained scattered across his room, not a box in sight. He was sure that the cut-off date for lingering graduates was approaching, but he couldn’t find it in himself to care.  
  
  
       The only thing he had the ability to focus on was that question, the one that had long since drained him of his lifeblood, wearing away at his flesh until it had chewed through to gnaw at his bones.  
       Rin drank deeper, forcing himself to swallow several mouthfuls of the lukewarm alcohol before he tore the glass from his lips, trying to stave off the awful, tedious replaying of that day.  
       It came anyway.  
  
  
  
  
  
  
       He had been looking for Haru the night before, staying up later than he should have the night before a tournament in hopes of catching him. It was obvious that something had been bothering him – _so obvious, why hadn’t any of them **realized,**_  
       It almost felt disrespectful, pushing Haru along as he had been doing, but his time was running out – _an awful choice of words, that_ – and Rin didn’t want him to be left behind, soaking in the bathtub as everybody around him moved on. He couldn’t bear to see him stuck in a rut like that, subsiding on a meager income sent by his absent parents, waking up every day with nothing to look forward too and no friends to greet him, and going to sleep every night with nothing accomplished.  
        _Maybe he thought so too. Could that have been the reason why…? No, it couldn’t have been just that, there had to have been something more…_  
       And so Rin had pushed him. They all did, really. It was just a slump, they had assumed. Haru would pull through it and work it out like he always had, in that quiet introspective way of his.  
  
  
       Rin’s own words echoed mockingly in his head.  
       “ _…but it looks like he’s still running away, as always._ ”  
       But he hadn’t guessed, nobody had any idea of how far he had ended up running to get away.  
  
  
  
       Rin had tried to catch him. Damnit, he tried. If he had only known, if he had been able to see the true depth of Haru’s hopelessness, maybe, no, definitely, he would have tried harder. He would have stayed up all night, racing down the streets until his legs gave out trying to find him.  
        _That’s hardly accurate_ , the recesses of his mind remarked disdainfully. _You knew all along, didn’t you? You knew. You knew he wasn’t alright. You knew, and you still left. You knew, but you abandoned him to his demons._  
  
  
       That pushed him over the edge, breaking the dam he had been fighting so hard to maintain. Rin collapsed in on himself as if he had been stabbed in the gut, lacing his fingers through unkempt hair, feeling his face contort, feeling every fibre of his body contort painfully once again. It rose to his head, like it always did, a pressure that felt as if it would simultaneously collapse his skull at the temples and explode his sinuses. A stinging wetness gathered in the creases of his eyes, every congested tear forced out as painfully as if it was diluted with blood and not salt. He choked out a sob, and it felt as if it would strangle him.  
       In a fit of…something, (grief? rage? he wasn’t sure) Rin flung his glass at the wall, indifferent to the fact that it was still half-full, or that he would have to clean the mess in the morning, or that the crash might send people pounding on his door.  
  
  
       But in the end, nobody came. The full moon shone through the open blinds, silently witnessing the uncontrollable shaking and the stifled cries until they slowly wore themselves out.  
       The worst part was that even after he had regained control of his body, the awful truth remained, buried in his flesh like the _vara_ piercing through the hide of a bull during a _corrida de toros_. Because the truth was, he had abandoned him.  
       Haru had chosen to walk with him down the corridor that day, trusting Rin with his presence, perhaps hoping to be able to talk through some of what had been weighing on his mind, and how had his trust been rewarded? Rin’s inept prodding. He couldn’t have just left the matter alone, he had to force, never taking a moment to listen when Haru needed to be heard the most.  
       He should have known. He should have known that he had gone too far when his words froze Haru in his tracks, those transparent ( _beautiful_ ) blue eyes hidden behind obsidian hair, shoulders slumped forward in defeat. Was he hurting then?  
        _Obviously._  
       Was he the one who had hurt him? Like a cresting wave, too late to escape, too large to dodge, the answer overwhelmed him even as he tried to forget the question.  
        _Of course_ , he echoed to himself, appreciating the fresh wounds the thought opened, martyring himself in the pain. _And you never noticed. You were too occupied with your petty, self-centered irritation. You walked away. And you didn’t even spare him a backwards glance._  
  
  
       Everybody acted so surprised when Haru’s stroke faltered, not even halfway through the first fifty yards of the event. But how much of a shock was it, really? What else could it have been, other than an increasingly desperate cry for help? Even though the stands were a distance away from that center lane, you would have to have been blind to fail to see the desperation, that loss in that upturned gaze.  
  
  
       It had made Rin frantic, seeing him like that. And he wasn’t thinking, didn’t understand when he tracked him down to the locker rooms like a predator after its next meal.  
       If only he had taken a moment to think, if maybe he had known that it would be the last time- _!_  
  
  
       Rin choked, sliding from his position on the mattress to sit on the floor, drawing his knees close to his chest.  
Some areas were far too tender to be roughhoused with in this way. Some thoughts were best left unidentified. The pain alone might kill him – he already felt as if his heart was being ripped to shreds in a literal sense.  
       So he let these thoughts mill around vaguely until they retreated. Unfortunately, he didn’t have the same ability or fortitude to halt the continuation of the retelling of this particularly awful story. If he tried, the same handful of scenes would repeat themselves senselessly, looping like the garbled fragments of a song playing on a scratched CD.  
  
  
        _No_ , he repeated dully to himself, _you weren’t thinking_.  
       He had stormed in and pinned Haru to the lockers by the forearms, letting his own emotions spiral out of control.  
       “ _Why the hell did you do that?_ ” he had asked. Rather, shouted tactlessly.  
       “ _It has nothing to do with you,_ ” Haru had replied coolly. At the time, Rin had assumed that those words were only a sullen attempt to push him away, a misguided refusal of help. And Rin had responded to this effect, becoming increasingly confrontational.  
        _But maybe he said that because he knew already, what he was going to do. Was that meant to be reassuring?_  
  
  
       “Haru,” Rin mumbled into his knees, his disused voice sounding weak, gravelly, and far too loud in a room where words hadn’t been spoken for hours.  
       “Damnit, Haru, it had everything to do-” he broke off,  
        _-with me. How do you manage to make everything about yourself? All that has happened, and you still haven’t learned?_

       “I’m sorry, Haru. I’m so sorry,” he apologized brokenly.  
       It wasn’t enough. The words fell flat, the sentence a poster child for exercises in futility. 

       How idiotically surprised he was when Haru violently shook himself free of his grasp, swinging his fist back to meet metal in an uncharacteristic display of aggression.  
       “ _What dream?_ ” he had shouted, eyes blazing.  
       “ _What future?_ ” 

       God, could he have made it any more obvious? Though he had only raised his voice in that moment, hadn’t he been screaming the entire time? 

       And how had Rin responded? Did he gather him into his arms? Did he hold him close to his chest, smooth the hair over the back of his head as he let him rest beneath his chin? Did he reassure him, accept him, comfort him? Did he listen?  
        _…why the fuck couldn’t you listen?_

       He had seen it firsthand, a dangerous and telling shift in demeanor, when Haru had eased from his agonized, desperate outburst to perfect composure after he had noticed the presence of his teammates. Rin watched him look them all serenely in the eyes as he spoke that terrible lie.  
       “ _It’s alright._ ” How smoothly he transitioned to the façade, and how stupid they all had been to let themselves believe it.  
       “ _It’s alright,_ ” he had told Makoto a half dozen times earlier that day and the night before. (Rin knew this because Makoto had told him so.)  
       “ _It’s alright,_ ” and Rin had let him pretend. 

       His breath hitched as realization struck him like a thunderbolt. For all his disguising, Haru had never been anything less than honest with him. Every time they had spoken that day and the times before then, he had never hidden behind pretenses. It would have been so easy for him to have repeated those platitudes, to placate Rin with soothing words like he had done with the others. He would have swallowed it, hook, line, and sinker, yet every time, he had chosen to lay his true nature bare. He had chosen to share his true thoughts and his conflict instead of internalizing it.  
        _Not that you were listening._

       Worse than that, he had let him walk away. He had watched him leave without breathing a word.  
       How could he have done that? How could he have been so short-sighted? (Rin wasn’t entirely sure who he was referring to with that statement.) He could have done something, changed everything in that moment, that final, precious moment, and the frustration of it all took hold of him like a blind rage. He could have thrown himself prone, kicking and screaming like an ill-mannered child if it would somehow thrash his soul and sanity to pieces so that he wouldn’t have to deal with the shattered mess that they were any more.  
       But the only movement in the room was the rhythm of his breathing, because one could not simply choose to discard their soul or sanity. 

       They said that he had stayed only long enough to watch him swim. That after his hands slammed into the pad and the numbers flashed across the board, Haru had slipped away without a word. That was the last anybody had seen of him.  
        _Why did he choose to leave then? It couldn’t have been to watch us swim for the last time – he was gone long before Nagisa’s event._  
       Was he trying to find me?  
       Rin didn’t know. Nobody knew. It was a question without an answer, to be thrown in the bin with the rest of them. 

       In his defense, he had been preoccupied at the time, his attention diverted by Sousuke’s admission.  
       He had cried for Sousuke then. How could he have completely failed to empathize with Haru’s pain? Rin had rectified the balance by now – he must have shed his own weight in tears over the past several weeks for his sake.  
        _Too late. Where were you when he made that choice? Where were you when he was trying to fight off those torturous thoughts? Where were you, Rin?  
       Off searching of reasons to start fights with the one person who needed his help the most. Giving literally every other thing priority over his agony. Off, finding ways to trivialize even the strongest of all the warning signs. _

       Rin would curl in further on himself if it was physically possible to do so. He could feel his diaphragm begin to spasm again, jerking erratically within his chest. He stumbled to his feet, swaying and almost falling down with the combined effects of alcohol and the natural drugs his body was pumping through his system. The contents of his desk crashed on the floor as he fumbled for a drawer, grabbing at the photograph he had hidden from himself before. 

       “Haru,” he began, savoring the name on his lips as if it were a fading elixir. He began to wander around the room nonsensically, his attention riveted by the two characters on the printed sheet – one blue and black, one all red. 

       “Ha-Haru,” he repeated, as if by saying it, somehow, he could hear. He didn’t mind when he slipped drunkenly on the remnants of his last drink, collapsing and catching his fall with one forearm. 

       “Haru,” as if he would open the door any moment with that quizzical, concerned expression when people got too emotional around him. Rin shuffled to a sitting position, the pieces around him grating and burying themselves in his palm. How anxious would Haru be when he saw all these shards of glass, blood tinting the clear fragments red? Rin wouldn’t mind, if it meant seeing him again. 

       “Haru-ru,” and it was all he could do to keep himself from wailing the name. The tears streamed down his face, suddenly finding a limitless reserve. He was careful not to drip on the picture. It was the only one he had of them – just them. 

       “Co-come back, Haru,” and he was definitely yelling now, though he was only vaguely aware of his own volume. 

       “Haru, Ha-Haru, come back. Please.” He remembered the light smell of the deodorant he used to wear, somehow blending perfectly with the aroma of salt and chlorine. 

       “Please, pu-please, Haru, don’t leave.” And there was a time that he had listened, and they hadn’t disentangled themselves from each other until late in the morning, despite the fact that they had both missed class because of it. 

       “Please, don’t leave me here alone again, please…” And the more he remembered, the harder he sobbed, every sweet reminder driving a fresh lance through his soul, the agony mixing with the pleasure in a beautiful and horrible way. 

       He didn’t care when they started pounding frantically on the door. He didn’t care when his vision began to go dark and it started to get hard to breath. He didn’t care when they had to have the security guard break in to reach him, or when they carried him outside in an explosion of white and red lights. 

       He couldn’t find a fragment of himself that was willing to divert his attention from the only person that had ever mattered at all. 

       “Haru…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> No worries, Rin will be fine(-ish). He might need to have his stomach pumped, though. 
> 
> but back to the point.  
> chapter 2 will come, and that's where we'll start diverging a bit more from canon. specifically, there will be more mentions of harurin and a bit more of the aftermath. I'll try not to get so melodramatic next time, but no promises.


	2. Haru's Discontentment

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'M NOT SORRY
> 
> So one thing that I was going to mention when I published this last night and then forgot was that some aromantic elements started leaking into this fic. I know it's a relatively uncommon and undefined orientation, but it seems that Haru already displays many tendencies towards it canonically. In addition, it has a bit of a personal element to it because it's a thing that I identify with, and I did end up paralleling some of my own experiences and feelings regarding the matter back when I didn't know what an aromantic was. so hopefully I'll be able to keep things relatively true to form and give some of you an idea of how us aros tick (because it's a bitch to explain on dates, have you ever tried?) without causing any controversy.  
> Also, I realize that this is a pretty depressive and angst-y way of introducing aromanticism, so don't give me shit about that. It really isn't an easy thing to come to terms with when you don't know what's going on, and maybe this can communicate that point. But rest assured, it's not all depression and sorrow - I'll testify to that, I'm doing pretty well. ^^

      The chaos of the tournament had proven to be too much to endure. It was all too loud and too close between the clamor of the crowd and the questioning glances sent his way, many of them originating from people that he had never met, never known. They were looking at him the way one might observe the death throes of some great predator – unpredictable, unapproachable, and beyond consolation.  
      He slipped away from the bleachers and nobody saw him leave. But he paused by the doors on his way out, looking back to watch the excitement playing across Rin’s face from his position of victory at the end of the pool. He laughed, replied to some inaudible comment, and shook the water out of his hair with his fingertips, sending a sparkling cluster of droplets to flight.  
      He seemed happy as somebody reached down to help him out of the water, his teammates slapping him on the back and expressing their congratulations.  
      That was good.  


      Haru left then, but Rin never saw him go.  


      It was better outside. A few scattered individuals walked the paths beneath the shade of spreading branches, but nobody paid him any heed.  
      He settled on a bench situated in a quieter area of the courtyard, lacing his fingers behind his head and closing his eyes to blot out the intrusion of the mottled light above him. He wanted the cool solitude of his bath more than anything, but it was many miles away, out of sight and out of reach.  
      Haru reflected on the recurring parallels in life, but it only created more dissonance than was present before.  


      “ _Don’t you have a dream?_ ” Rin’s voice echoed, resonating with anger and an underlying desperation.  
      “ _Take this more seriously!_ ”  
      Haru ran his fingers along the places where Rin had held his arms, his own touch only a flutter in comparison.  


      Dreams. A future. Everybody spoke of these things as if they were some divine key to the universe. So what was one supposed to do if they had to live without these?  


      After all, he had never particularly _wanted_ anything. There were things he appreciated as they passed by, certainly; the warmth of his teammates around him at the finish of a winning relay, drifting through crisp waters as the sun warmed him from above, strands of wine-red hair that fell across his chest.  
      But these things were only temporary. The sun would set and rise again, reducing it all to only a handful of memories.  
      People clung to these moments with such tenacity, fighting so hard to hold onto fragments that would eventually, inevitably slip away from them despite their best efforts.  
      Because the blossoms will rot in the water and the branches will wither and die – people move on, move away, knowing you only as an afterthought, a footnote in a chapter of a book read long ago.  


      All he had ever really wanted was to swim – because the times where he was immersed in the water was the only time he truly felt free, unbound and unshackled from the harassment of the world around him. In the water, everything else didn’t seem to matter as much. It wrapped around his body like a shield, sheltering him from the din, muffling the voices, the requests, the commitments, the obligations. It was safe. It was secure. It was his.  
      But it seemed like even that was being taken from him. The depths held no peace for him anymore.  


      Haru suddenly felt exhausted.  
      In truth, the only thing he had ever really wanted – because swimming was a means more so than it was an end – was to slip away. Somewhere where concern wouldn’t parade itself across the expressions of his friends during every conversation, somewhere where obligations were irrelevant, somewhere where he could simply be at peace with himself without anybody dictating every reason why he shouldn’t be.  


      He had never felt as if he were a true member of this society that he had been so rudely thrust in. Dreams. Careers. Future plans. Money. Sustenance. Relationships. Commitments. They all just felt so very unimportant.  


      Couldn’t he just leave, like he had left the mezzanine moments before? This game was growing old.  
      The idea was hardly a new one to him, yet this was the first time that he felt … ready, somehow, and at peace with the concept. Those who were close to him were moving on and transitioning to greater things as it was. His absence was already a given factor – in the long run, would how great of an absence it would actually be matter?  


  
  
      Footsteps crashed through the foliage close by and Haru tensed as if he had been caught in the midst of a crime scene. A familiar voice filtered through behind him – all the more recognizable for the lack of volume control. Had Rin come to find him again? Perhaps it wouldn’t be a bad idea to make a second attempt at talking things through, if that was his intent.  
      But his words were answered by another, dashing Haru’s selfish assumptions. He fidgeted uncomfortably – it was obviously intended to be a private discussion. But in the end, what would it matter?  


      The story Sousuke told was long and relatively uninteresting, yet Haru found himself bristling at the overt tenacity that Rin’s old friend displayed for the sake of swimming with him for a final season.  
      Could he complain? Rin needed somebody close by him to support him and drive him forward. Haru had known long ago that he couldn’t be that person, as much as he favored the idea. Unfortunately, favor did not have much bearing with reality. If he was to go, and Rin were to stay, could he really refuse to oblige him the company of another? Such possessiveness was childish.  


      At the end of Sousuke’s tale, Rin responded, his voice thick and rough with emotion.  
      “Why?” he asked, and Haru suddenly felt an eerie sense of déjà vu.  
      “Because I knew you would cry,” Sousuke answered softly, the affection obvious in his tone.  
      And Rin cried, denying it the entire time.  


      A sudden lance of regret worked its way through Haru’s heart as he began to realistically process the implications of his decision. The others might shed a few tears and move on, eventually, but that would be the extent of it. They had others to hold them up, the warmth and shelter of friends and loved ones to keep them aloft.  
      But Rin? Rin would cry as if he chose to bear the full weight of the load on Haru’s heart. But he had his own networks of support as well. The pain would only be for a time. Yet hearing his stifled sobs at that moment was very unsettling, so Haru left, careful not to draw attention to himself as he retreated.  


  
  
  
      He began to walk without having any good idea of exactly where he was walking to. He wandered down unfamiliar avenues and abandoned side streets until he managed to reach the outskirts of the city, the looming buildings at his back. It was a warm day, so he stopped at a ramshackle convenience store to buy a large bottle of water to last him the rest of the day. He felt a bit better when he turned down an old, quiet road where the asphalt was faded and weeds pushed their way through the cracks at the edges of the pavement.  
      The road began to curve and climb, hiding the city that he had escaped from behind the trees. The ocean spread out not far below, breaking itself over the rough shores. The hiss of the distant waves was reassuring.  


      At one point, he abandoned his jacket, the light material quickly becoming stifling in the heat. He ran his fingers over the embroidered “IWATOBI” before letting it fall over the guardrail.  
      The relay would have started by now. It was wrong of him to have lied like that, but they would forgive him. They were probably searching for him, calling the phone that he had left in his locker repeatedly. The thought made him feel a bit guilty, but he continued onwards.  


      He wasn’t sure where he was going to, but at this point he knew that it was a place that he wouldn’t return from. The notion, when retrieved from the recesses in his mind, was soothing. Comforting. For the first time, he felt as if all was right with the world – ironically enough, considering the fact that he was about to leave it.  
      But there was still one fact which unsettled him, preventing him from truly coming to terms with his end.  
      Rin would cry.  


      He knew that he wouldn’t be able to understand, just like he wasn’t able to comprehend why when Haru had told him that they couldn’t have any more late mornings like the ones they had shared in the past. Rin was a fire, burning brightly and passionately in the dark. Haru was the deep, still waters in the moonlight. Their very natures were a contradiction.  
      And yet, Rin had always sought him out, wrapping his essence around Haru’s blithely, self-indulgently. Not that his attention was undesirable, because if he was honest with himself, Rin’s presence was just as much as an indulgence to him.  
      He wished that he was cut of a stronger character – perhaps then he would be free to return his affection uninhibitedly. Yet as it was, he could not fight down that part of him that balked when Rin had whispered those three words, spoken when it was assumed that he was sleeping. The thought of being the sole subject of Rin’s undivided love was something that was at once both exhilarating and terrifying.  
      At first, Haru had blamed it on nerves. And so he tried to ease himself into it, consenting to spending time with Rin in a more intimate manner; letting him wrap his arms around him, bending his neck for a tender kiss, feeling Rin melt at his touch as they settled down for the night.  
      But as their little sleepovers passed them by, Rin only seemed to fall more in love, while Haru didn’t feel much of anything at all.  
      It wasn’t that he didn’t _like_ him – if there was one person that he wouldn’t mind seeing every day, or waking up to every morning, it would be Rin. But shouldn’t there be something more than that? Shouldn’t he be chasing after him with matching desire?  
      Yet as hard as he tried to force it within himself, it wouldn’t come. Those three words were the moment when he knew that their affair would not end well – he could see it like one could see the signs of a catastrophic crash moments before it would hit. Rin would only grow more attached, and Haru could only be himself. It would only amount to be a parallel of their ill-fated race years ago, with the one he cared about most storming away in pained tears while he was left behind, guilt-ridden over the fact that he was still relatively intact.  
      Rin didn’t understand why Haru had called the break, but he had handled the adjustment like a prince, calmly accepting his need for space, waiting patiently on the sidelines for him to make the decision to come back to him – never pushing, never intruding, at least when it didn’t involve Haru’s life decisions.  


      A part of him suddenly had to wrestle with the idea to turn back and revoke his decision. It was true that he had turned Rin away before, but that had never deterred him. While he respected Haru’s request for space, he was always there, waiting in the background at the edges of every scene and admiring him from afar with that contented, hopeful expression that wore away at his resolve a bit more every day.  
      If Haru went back now, he knew that Rin would accept him with no questions asked. If Haru suddenly embraced him, he would tenderly wrap his arms around his chest after a brief moment of surprise and then he might bury his face in Haru’s hair, tightening his grip, telling him that he wasn’t ever going to let go of him without speaking a single word.  


      But he didn’t deserve Rin. How could he, when he would only ever be a burden to him? He knew that he would call off all plans and expectations at a word, but therin was the imbalance – he could only take, while Rin could only give.  
      It was selfish. It was unhealthy. Because for all of Rin’s sacrifices, he would never be able to offer enough to buy Haru’s requitement. The sad, honest truth was that Rin’s affection – even his love could not be enough to soothe that shifting discomfort that Haru had known his entire life.  


      Dreams. Future. Weren’t they largely irrelevant? They were things crafted for personalities of a different mold, a group that he didn’t belong to.  


      But Rin would cry.  


  
  
  
      He was approaching a small town – hardly anything more than a group of houses and a convenience store. A handful of residents noted his passing, some on foot like him, others outside tending to their chores. They glanced at him with disinterest as he went by.  
      An idea struck him and he approached the sole store in town, spending the last of the funds he had on hand and leaving with various writing materials.  


      The village fell behind him just as the city had hours before. When the landscape evened out and the road twisted inland, he left the pavement to follow the contours of the shore instead, rough rocks giving way to a narrow, cluttered beach.  
      At one point, as the sun began to bury itself in the waves on the horizon, he let the rhythm of his strides falter. It was there that he took his seat, resting with his knees drawn close to his chest as he watched the colors change in the evening sky while the daylight faded around him.  


       _There’s more to live for_ , he could imagine Rin pleading. But if there truly was, it disinterested him.  
      He wished that there was some way that he could make them understand. This this – this was not a bad thing. That he would be fine. That in the end, it was better this way. All the dreams, all the futures - those were for somebody else to live for, because it was here, on this deserted beach bathed in the dimming light of a late summer evening, that he found his serenity.  


      Haru could accept that. If only there was a way that he could show them how to accept his passing just as easily.  
      But in the end, it was of little consequence. It may sting a bit at first, but the pain would fade with time. He would be remembered for a while and then forgotten again. After all, they were young and life had plenty in store for them – love, futures, dreams, and change. They would all move on without him at one point or another, be it in life or in death.  
      And that was fine.  


      He had spent enough time regarding such things. The water was calling to him, and it was growing impatient.  


      Haru shed the remainder of his clothes, stripping down to his swimsuit. He had never changed fully after his last event, but that ended up working out to his advantage.  
      He was very aware of how tired he was as he wandered into the shallows, the ebb and flow of the waves lapping at his feet and climbing his shins as he ventured deeper. It was like every other time he had gone out into the open to swim, and yet it was different. His heart was jumping nervously in his chest and he was suddenly painfully aware of each beat and every breath his lungs pulled.  
      Was it fear? Excitement? He wasn’t entirely sure, but he continued out until it was too deep to stand, and then swam out further, ignoring the burn of the saltwater in his eyes.  


      The water wrapped around him in a comforting embrace, soothing his aches, quieting his doubts, subduing his fears, just as he knew it would.  
      He let it take him.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Alright, so this might end up being a bit longer than two chapters. (huzzah?)
> 
> Also I am being purposefully ambiguous about Haru's fate, so draw your own conclusions...


	3. Rin's Desolation

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> ....This might be a tough one to read through.  
>  Please note that tags are updated~

_Stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, (breathe)_  
       _Stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, (breathe)_  
       _Stroke, stroke, stroke, (hold and turn)_  
       _Stroke, stroke, (breathe)_  
       _Stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, (breathe)  
_        _Stroke, stroke, stroke, stroke, (breathe)_

      The water was heavy around his body, resisting every movement. Pushing through it was an act of will, every pull of his arms and every kick a battle of dominance. To continue, he had to thrash it into submission, defying its will and overcoming its strength every time it gathered for a renewed assault.

      Swimming didn’t come naturally to him. It never had. His bones were a bit too dense, perhaps, because he had always been more inclined to drift downwards than float. Not that he had ever let that stop him.

      Rin pushed forward, squinting behind his goggles as he navigated the dark pool. A single submerged light provided a constant beam, while another towards the deep end flickered intermittently, illuminating the contours of his body and the lane lines anchored to either side of his with drastic flashes. The rest were dark, observing his movements like cold, dead eyes.  
      He wasn’t sure how long he had been swimming – he kept loosing count after six hundred yards and gave up trying not long after that. It seemed as if he had been there for years. It seemed as if he had just dived in moments ago. His arms and legs hadn’t given out yet, so he pushed forward.

      The lights all simultaneously crashed on, making him wince at the sudden surge of illumination. He almost collided with somebody floating directly in his path and backpedaled to a stop, fanning the water powerfully in front of him.  
      Rin surfaced, lifting his goggles. The intruder blithely continued on, slipping over the tops of the lane lines with ease. But his movements were familiar, that dark hair was unmistakable. Could it be?  
      “Haru!” he shouted, pushing off the bottom to follow him towards the deep end. The other swimmer only turned his head slightly in acknowledgement, only seeming to drift further away despite Rin’s rapid, slashing strokes.  
      “Hey, Haru,” he repeated breathlessly, reaching out to grab at his shoulder-

      All the lights cut out, flushing the pool in complete darkness. Rin felt his heart seize and falter as his extended arm only hit the surface, grasping around blindly for the person who was just there.  
      “Haru?”  
      The water chose that moment to betray him, thinning to the point where his treading was barely enough to keep his head above water as he floundered. He tried to dig deeper, kicking powerfully, flattening his palms to increase his surface area and applying every fibre of his being to the task of staying above the surface. Exhaustion began to set into his limbs, the dull burn flaring through his muscles as his struggles began to weaken.  
      And then he was sinking, being pulled down by his ankles with unparalleled force. Rin tried to pull himself free, but his face slipped beneath the waterline just before he drew a final, desperate breath.  
      He hit the tile at the bottom as if he were bound to it, pressed flat on his back with his arms pinned to his sides. That single light began to flicker again, revealing the dark-haired young man that held him there. He slowly raised his chin to look his captive in the eyes, and what Rin saw made his heart stop for all the wrong reasons.

      The flesh was peeling away from his cheeks, revealing stark white bone. Veins shaded in grotesque reds and blues bulged, tangling across ashen skin like a network of roots. His grip tightened, burying the bony tips of fingers into Rin’s biceps as he leaned forward, stopping only inches from his face, fragments of rot billowing from parted lips to cloud the water.

      And suddenly, he was gone, but Rin remained bound in the depths, choking on the liquid that streamed into his lungs as he tried to force his throat closed. It laced deep inside his aveoli, burning like a thousand small firebrands. The feeling sent him coughing uncontrollably, expelling whatever air he had left as his diaphragm contracted.  
      He began to panic. The light burned out.  
  
  


\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  
  
      Rin jerked awake with his pulse pounding in his ears and an inexplicable rawness in his throat. The ceiling fan throbbed above him, the blades tracing rapid circles through the air.  
      He groaned and turned on one side, propping himself up on one elbow to check the display on his phone. 4:38 in the morning. It was as good a time as any to wake up.

      Morning practice wouldn’t begin for a few hours yet, so he slipped on his old Samezuka jacket and ventured out of the dorms. While he was still not terrifically familiar with the area that was to be his home for the next several years, he knew this particular route well, following the path that wound its way down to the shores of the harbor.  
      The beach was quiet at this hour of the morning as opposed to the bustle of the daytime. It was hardly busy, though it wasn’t completely empty. A young lady passed by, led by an overenthusiastic German Shepard. Joggers tread their route, the wires from their earbuds swinging with their stride. An elderly man relaxed with a steaming to-go cup, waiting for the dim light to give way to the brilliance of the sun’s rising.  
      Rin did his best to ignore them and continued on his own pilgrimage, turning to watch the water more often than the path in front of him. He ended up taking a seat on a distant bench, far from the parking lots and shops, leaning forward to rest his elbows on his knees as he rubbed at his tired face.

      It felt wrong, moving on like this. As if nothing had ever happened. As if Haru had never left.  
      In all probability, if it were not for the intervention of Gou and the rest of the Iwatobi swim team, as well as a very confrontational Sousuke, Rin might have never left Japan, wallowing in his loss instead of following his future. Not that it was easy to do so. It was a weight that he bore every day, buried like a rusted harpoon in the back of a scarred veteran of the seas.  
      Forcing himself to swim again was one of the hardest things he had ever pushed himself through. The first few times, the water had felt dead around him, utterly lifeless, each stroke an exercise in futility. Freestyle had been the worst. The first hundred yards had unleashed a torrent of memories that had left him standing at the center line of the pool, struggling to control his breathing – an eerie parallel to the events that he had observed not long ago. He was glad nobody had been around to witness that. His record of breaking down publicly had reached all-time highs over the past few months.  
  
  
  
      His mother had never been the type to reprimand him when the tears began to flow. Other boys his age had been subjected to platitudes, but when Rin cried, his mother would only gather him close, stroking his hair and praising his tender heart.  
      One particular day, a classmate had made an insensitive comment regarding his deceased father that had him sniffling and wiping his eyes the entire walk home. The old neighbor lady had taken his face in her wrinkled hands, sternly reminding him that he was the man of the house and that he had to be strong for his mother and sister – that it wasn’t fit for them to see him cry so.  
      And so he went the rest of the way holding his breath to quell his hiccuping, resolutely blotting away the unwanted moisture with the hem of his shirt. When his mother reached out to comfort him, he dodged her embrace, muttering his newfound excuse.

      “Rin-chan,” she began, the vermilion eyes that matched his own suddenly looking very tired. “Everybody feels sad at one point, just like how everybody can feel happy or angry. Would you stop smiling if somebody told you not to?”  
      He slowly shook his head.  
      “Then don’t let them tell you that you can’t be sad,” she continued, reaching out to trace a loose tear with her fingertips. “In this world, there are too many people that can’t let themselves be sad. It sits in their gut and rots because they never let it out.”  
      Rin blinked concernedly. “Can you die from it?”  
      “No, honey,” she soothed, inviting him to sit on her lap. He wordlessly accepted the offer, grabbing unto the braid that hung over her shoulder with sweaty palms.  
      “And sometimes,” she continued hesitantly, “Sometimes the most important thing that people need is for somebody to cry for them, when they can’t do it on their own.”  
      This concept confused him. “Why?”  
      The question seemed to take her aback. “It shows-” she began, trying to form a proper answer. “It means that you – well – just remember this, Rin.  
      “You have a gentle soul. So if you’re ever really, truly feeling sad, it’s okay to cry. Even if it’s in front of other people. Because sometimes, if they’re really hurting, here,” she poked his chest, just above his heart, “-deep inside, it helps if somebody can cry for them. It helps them heal.”  
  
  
  
      But in the end, he had failed to heal the one who had needed it most, hadn’t he?  
      Rin sighed and leaned back, stretching his arms over the back of the bench. How many days had it been now?  
      …he couldn’t remember.

      The hardest part was waking up like this every day, knowing that he was gone, knowing that chances were that he would never come back. It had been four months now, and Haru had vanished from the face of the earth without a trace, the only testament to his existence found in a pile of abandoned clothes miles from civilization.  
      It used to send his mind in frantic scramblings, desperately searching for some way, some possibility of seeing him again, even if it was just for a whispered word, the briefest glance, the lightest of touches. Rin would sacrifice anything, even if it was only to say goodbye to him properly.  
      But there was no cunning trick, no secret method or second chances with these matters, because Haru was gone.  
      If he had known that moment in the locker room would be their last, what would he have done differently?

      It was a subject he had meditated on frequently, indulging the fantasy as if somehow he could rewrite history to make it a reality.  
      Rin would have cried for him like he should have done from the first place. He would have held him close and told him how perfect he was and how irreplaceable his life was in between the tears.  
      He would have told him how much he loved him, that it didn’t matter what he did or how much space he needed as long as he could still be a part of his life.

       _too late, too late, too late_ , his consciousness echoed sorrowfully.

      He didn’t lean forward or try to cover his face when his eyes began to prick painfully. If someone would ask, he would say, _I’m mourning the loss of somebody close to me_. And maybe they would sit, and Rin would tell them about Haru, preserving his memory in the mind of a stranger. It had happened before.  
      But this morning, nobody asked.

      He had taken to carrying a notebook and pen with him on walks like these. Some pages were filled with letters addressed to Haru, others were rambling journal entries, while the rest were fragments of memories. Many of them were rippled and distorted with water marked spots.  
      He opened it now, leafing through the hand-written pages until he came to the first blank one. After a brief search for his pen, he hesitated and began to write.  
  
  
       _Haru-_  
_I know I say it every time, but I miss you. I miss you so much. I wish you were here to watch the sunrise with me. Where I am, you can see it rise above the ocean, like it was underwater the entire night. It really is beautiful. You would like it. You would probably strip down to your swimsuit and jump in the waves as soon as the light hit the water. Sometimes we get dolphins through the harbor, early in the morning like this. You could have swum with them. They were your favorite, right?_

_You must have been watching the ocean like this, right before you left. Did it make you want to leave?_

_I wish I was there for you. I’m so sorry, Haru. How long did you wait? What were you thinking? Was it so bad that you had to leave everything, leave me, leave us?_  
_Forever?  
_ _I wish you would have talked to me about it. Even if it wasn’t me, because I know I can be an ass, I wish you told somebody._

 _We were all worried sick about you, you know. When you didn’t show up for the relay, we were nervous, but when the train came and you still weren’t around, everybody started to panic. Nagisa wouldn’t stop crying. Rei threw up and Makoto just kept calling your cell phone, even though it went straight to voicemail every time. Miss Amakata was so upset, the police could barely understand her when she went to the station. And Gou – I don’t think I’ve ever seen her break down like that, not since Dad died.  
_ _I could **feel** my heart break. It felt like it was splitting behind my ribs. It was the worst pain I’ve ever been in. __And I feel it every day, like it never healed properly._

_Do you know how much you hurt all of us?_

_It’s been such a struggle, Haru. There doesn’t seem to be much of a point to doing anything anymore. All I have are memories now, but I’d rather have you._  
_I miss you so much, Haru. I can’t even start to think that I might not ever see you again, that you’ll never swim alongside me again or that I’ll never have that awful over-salted mackerel again when I spent the night at your place. I made it one time, just the way you used to. It was disgusting.  
_ _I miss the times when I woke up in your arms and you’d have your leg thrown over me and your face in my hair despite everything you said the night before about hating cuddling._

 _Haru, why did you go?_  
_Why did you have to leave me alone again?  
_ _I’d do anything to be with you again, you know. I’d give up swimming for good, I’d never touch a pool again, and I wouldn’t care how much money or scholarships they’d offer me to swim. If it could somehow bring you back, I would, because I know you did it once for me._

_I wish I could have seen you before you went. I would have held you, I would have listened to everything you had to say. Or maybe we wouldn’t speak at all, if that’s what you needed._

_I miss you. I miss you so much, Haru._  
_Please come back. I don’t know what I’ll do if you don’t._  
  
  
  
      He sat there for a long time after writing the last line, holding the tip of the pen suspended over the paper. His thoughts were starting to spiral senselessly, repeating themselves without bringing any real consolation. Rin’s head ached.  
      He closed the notebook, staring out over the open water with a vacant expression, looking, yet not really seeing, lost in the static overwhelming his mental processes.  
      And then with a stifled whimper, he collapsed in on himself, tucking his face behind crossed arms.

      It was never enough – it never was, and it never would be. Nothing he could write would ever be able to bring the closure which constantly remained out of reach. For months now, he had chased after the questions and sought out the reasons, blindly assuming that if he could somehow understand _why_ , it would bring his agony to an end.  
      But as these answers continued to evade him, he was gradually coming to the realization that in the end, they wouldn’t matter. They were so very irrelevant because with them or without, Haru was still gone and no explanation could reverse that.  
      He was even beginning to question if the writing was a healthy habit to maintain. He was finding himself slipping into the ridiculous assumption that somehow, Haru would be able to read or understand the notes addressed to him, but at the end of it all it was only Rin and a notebook and a lonely beach far too early in the morning.

      During the day, he’d mentally tag thoughts or things that reminded him of Haru, but then suddenly he would remember that he was gone - _gone_ \- and the world would fall to pieces around him.  
      He would pick them up, each time a solitary venture. He tried to work his way back into his own life, yet with every breaking it seemed that less and less remained of him. Rin navigated classes and practices almost mechanically, completing his homework and forcing his body through the water without any particular driving force behind the actions. The days seemed to grow meaningless, as if they were only a waiting period or an interlude between acts.  
      What was at the end of it?  
      …he couldn’t say.  
  
  


\-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

  


      He found a thick envelope waiting in his mailbox at the end of the day, addressed in his mother’s familiar handwriting. He opened it in the solitude of his dorm, shaking out several more envelopes and a note on loose leaf paper. He read that first.

       _Rin-chan,_  
_Here are a few letters that were posted to you since you left. I think one has the papers for the driver’s licensing that you were waiting for.  
Stay strong, and remember that you are loved!_

      He tore open the official-looking one first, confirming his mother’s assumptions. He set the paperwork aside to deal with later. Two others were from different universities – a bit belated. Those he set to the side as well.  
      It was the last one that caught his attention. It was a cheap-looking envelope with his name and home address scrawled on the front, postmarked from an unfamiliar town.  
      He opened it and felt his heart tear to pieces all over again.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> haru broke rin, I think


	4. Rin's Rancor

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And you thought I'd just leave you hanging until next week, didn't you?  
> Short chapter but more to come. Story is actually completed (first completed multichapter project? what?!). All formatting from here. But over the past two days I've worked about 24 hours and slept for about two, ( _fuck_ john deere skidsteers and insomnia) so don't expect great things of me until I manage to get the workload back on an even keel

_Rin,_  
_You’re probably upset. But it’s alright. Things are better this way._  
_Everybody has to leave eventually. People die. It’s not your fault. It’s not anybody’s fault. I never belonged here. So this is fine._  
_Don’t miss me for too long. You need somebody that deserves you. Somebody better than me._  
_I’m sorry I couldn’t stay._

      And that was all.  
      Rin read and re-read the few lines numbly, the implications of the words failing to connect fully with his thought processes.  
      He felt bile rising in his throat. 

      “What the hell, Haru?” he hissed, voice shaking with barely suppressed fury. He wasn’t sure if he wanted to crush the letter, light it on fire, or sink it in the deepest part of the ocean. Probably all of the above.  
      “Is this supposed to help? Is this supposed to just make everything all right? Just like that? If you wanted that,” and now his volume was getting out of control and he was slipping illegibly into a mixture of English and his native language.  
      “-then maybe you shouldn’t have _fucking left_ , Haru. The _fuck_ ,” he snapped, throwing the letter on the desk as violently as he could, the effect diminished as the open sheet of paper caught the air and drifted lazily to the floor instead.  
      He ignored it, pointedly looking away from that entire corner of his room as he began to pace, his movements stiff with tension. He knotted his fingers through his hair before releasing it and rubbing furiously at his face for no reason in particular.  
      “What the _fuck_ , Haru,” he spat, anger coursing uncontrollably through his blood like the venom from a snakebite, building, paralyzing, intensifying by the second.  
      “How could you be so _fucking_ selfish? Did you even think about what you were doing for more than, I don’t know, _two fucking seconds_?”  
      Rin huffed, the sound emerging as a humorless, incredulous laugh.  
      

      “Of course you didn’t,” he continued quietly, disbelief resonating through his words. “You didn’t care about what it would do to me. What it would do to all of us. You didn’t give a single fuck, didn’t you? Did you take some sick fucking pleasure in hurting us all the way you did?” 

      He was silent for a long time after that, formless thoughts impossible to put into words howling through his mind like a winter storm. When he raised his head again, he made no effort to clear away the wet tracks running along his cheekbones, their presence doing little to soften the smoldering ire behind his eyes. 

      “Fuck you, Haru. Fuck you. I would never fucking do what you did to me. You fucking asshole.” 

  
  
  
      He ended up falling asleep fully clothed, the blank pages of a notebook spread on the covers beside his contorted position.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> [Screenshot for this chapter, because it's so unusual that canon scenes have any relation to what I write.](https://36.media.tumblr.com/6ecaa68c11da84f2f5091b52497e0b2b/tumblr_nu6kcneoTg1ubkp90o1_400.jpg)


	5. Rin's Inanition

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I apparently formatted this at one point and then forgot. Whoops. Slightly amazed that it's relatively error-free, yet I was evidently too inebriated to even remember typing it out.
> 
> \-------------------
> 
> Every time I open my notebook to format these chapters, I always think something along the lines of WHY MUST I DO THIS TO MYSELF. But I can't help it. Really, I can't.

      The strange thing about time is the fact that even after the most traumatic of events, it continues to pass despite the feeling that everything else has come to a standstill.  


      And so Rin found himself stepping off the commercial plane, shuffling along the gangway with the small crowd that was filtering out into the deserted airport in the early hours of the morning.  
      New Year’s had always been a difficult holiday. Long ago, it had been an exciting time of decorating the house and making _kagami mochi_ , decorated rice cakes, with his mother and sister. He would help write _nengajo_ , seasonal postcards in the weeks before to send out to relatives and friends, and on the big day his father passed out _pochibukuro_ out to him and his sister, the little envelopes fat with folded bills.  


      That was before he had discovered that the holiday wasn’t celebrated during _mochu_ , the mourning period following the death of a family member. That year, there was no decorating. No rice cakes. No cards in the mail.  
      No father.  


      And while the other children his age celebrated and joined in the festivities around the small town, Rin gathered with what remained of his immediate family before the silence and the flickering candlelight of his father’s shrine.  
      He could never find much appeal in celebrating New Year’s after that. But over the years, it had become a touchstone for himself, his mother, and his sister – a chance for them to re-unite and appreciate the fact that they were all together while commemorating their loss.  
      This year would be particularly awful. As if it wasn’t bad enough revisiting the same scenery he had once shared with Haruka, they had never been able to observe _mochu_ for him properly. They had never found his body – searches yielded no results. Setting up a shrine for him or hosting a _tsuya_ , or wake, would be presumptuous, forcing Haru out of the realms of the living without any proper confirmation of his passing while implying that there was no real hope for his return.  
      Though at this point, it was fairly obvious that he wouldn’t be coming back. Wouldn’t he have done so by now?  


      Rin’s mother picked him up at the airport behind the wheel of a new car, courtesy of her recent promotion. Gou came along as well despite the lateness of the hour, twisting in the front passenger seat to smile and talk with him between the amber flashes of streetlights over the twisting stretches of highway. His mom laughed at their anecdotes, interjecting with comments and stories of her own from time to time as they made their way back to Iwatobi.  
      Despite his earlier misgivings, he felt his back relax into the seat behind him as something like peace washed over him for the first time in a long time.  
  


\----------------------------------------------------

  
      The day before he was supposed to leave for Australia again, in the intermission between the end of the holiday season and the resumption of day to day life, Rin took a walk.  
      He started early in the morning to catch the first train out, just before the sun broke over the horizon. Winter felt like winter here, as opposed to the balmy temperatures around his university. The night before, there had been a light snow, dusting the sidewalks and streets of the city he was arriving in, catching the first traces of light in hues of periwinkle and rose.  
      It was appropriately calm, giving the earliness of the hour. Assortments of tire tracks crushed their imprints on the powder littering the streets, but Rin’s trail was the only one of its kind, footsteps breaking the virgin layer to snake along the walkways behind him.  


      His trip truly began at the aquatics facility where they had held their last confrontation, so many months ago. On a whim, he tried the doors but they resisted his efforts, locked tightly for the holidays. It wasn’t his destination for the day anyway, so he continued, consulting his phone every now and again for directions.  


      He finally found the back road that ran to the little town that the envelope had been postmarked from. It wouldn’t entirely be the same trip as Haru had made given the change of season, but it was a close enough experience. Rin walked alone and in silence, just as he was sure Haru would have, sticking close to the sides of the broken asphalt in lieu of a proper sidewalk.  
      The barren branches of the forest around him afforded a better view of the ocean below, the cold waves crashing at the feet of shallow, weather-worn cliffs. It was peaceful here, removed from the urbanization of the city. It wasn’t hard to see why Haru had continued along this particular path.  


      Rin didn’t think about that too hard and chose to focus on the timing of his breathing and footfalls, exhaling clouds into the morning twilight.  
  


  
  
      The little city came and went and the sun had risen long ago, but Rin was still pushing forward to a mark calculated with latitude and longitude on a borrowed GPS.  
      Five hours, it had been. Five hours filled with the cadence of his stride and silent contemplation. What enforcing reason could Haru have found in those three hundred minutes? Did he hesitate, perhaps pausing or turning back before changing direction again? Perhaps Rin was unintentionally mimicking him in the way his mind had been intermittently silenced by the static sounds of the wind through the trees and the water below.  


      The questions still plagued him, as useless as they were without any plausible answer. Over the months, he had come to realize that while some things could change or diminish with time, their roots would remain entrenched within his being. He might not ever be able to fully stop generating alternate courses of action and possibilities, but he was growing accustomed to their presence.  
      The pain was much the same. It still followed him, close at his heels like some great, dark wolf, but it was a tamer beast now, no longer jumping for his throat at the slightest provocation. There were still moments when he would be reminded all too well of Haru’s absence, but while they still held the power to cripple his spirit, he had become adept at moving with crutches.  


      He slipped a bit as he made his way over the rocks, catching his balance at the last moment to avert what would likely have been a painful fall. The beach was level in comparison to the hurdle, though it was not as easy of a walk as the road had been. Brush and scrub pushed their way up to the waterline in some areas, forcing Rin to flounder through their grabbing branches to continue. Rocks and chunks of driftwood littered the clearer stretches, positioned to force passerby into a weaving path.  


      He frowned at the device as he honed in on the small flag on the screen, dividing his attention between that and the obstacles in his way. 

      There was no fanfare when his dot merged with the marker, no emotional gymnastics, not even as much as a beep. He checked his position again before stopping to look around, turning all of his attention to the scenery around him and committing it to memory.  
      There wasn’t anything particularly distinctive about this place. There were no eye-grabbing landmarks, only the dried blades of tall, dead grass rustling in the breeze and a boulder sunk low in the sand amidst them, practically identical to the dozens like before.  


      Rin took a seat, facing the open water as Haru would have done. He hadn’t known what to expect by taking this pilgrimage. Time and distance were easy to predict, but the toll it took on a soul was an entirely different matter.  
     This place wasn’t Haru’s grave, but it was as close to one as this world could offer. They had found his clothes here, neatly folded and set on this stone out of the sand, as if he had intended to return and dress again for the trip back.  
     It would have been easy to dismiss it all as an accident, an unfortunate turn of fate that claimed Nanase Haruka’s life. But Rin knew too much to deceive himself. Despite his initial impulses, Haru’s letter was stored with the remainder of his most valuable possessions, pressed flat and carefully preserved against sudden spills or accidents. He had guarded it closely, keeping it a jealous secret, only re-reading it a handful of times since its arrival. It was originally his intention to share it, seeing as it was Haru’s last communication, but the revealing would not be without repercussions. There were many who were having a hard enough time coming to terms with Haru’s disappearance without definite knowledge of suicide. How would the confirmation destroy them?  
      It was wrong of him to hide it – he knew. It was wrong of him to nod along and comment “maybe” when it was mentioned that there might be a chance of Haru reappearing. It was wrong, but could he be faulted for sheltering them from the spiraling torrents of the questioning and the self-blame that he had come to know so well?  
     Yes, he was at fault. It was useless to pretend otherwise. However, the fact wouldn’t change his decision. It had become his weight to bear, a quiet, dark secret addressed to his name.  


      In the days before he had left, he had thought that he would cry – perhaps break down into full hysterics. He thought that by coming to this place, he would be brought to some state of peace and acceptance. Maybe then he would be able to smile at Haru’s thought instead of feeling the agonizing twist in his gut that he had come to expect. In the end, none of his predictions really came close.  
      In truth, at that moment, he didn’t feel much of anything. He was shrouded in a vague numbness like the chill that crept in through the gap at his neck that his scarf couldn’t cover. He wasn’t devastated. No tears pooled in his eyes, no emotion strangled his throat. The loss still weighed heavily on him, but he had passed the point where that alone was enough to reduce him to an inconsolable wreck.  


      Rin sighed and leaned forward, rummaging through the backpack he had laid by his feet.  


      As far as memorials went, it was nothing especially significant or elaborate. But when it was complete, it would stand the test of seasons to come, the smooth black granite firmly anchored to the rock beneath it.  
      Rin carefully removed blossom studded branches from protective boxes and laid them next to the marker as a final touch, their light scent perfuming the air. Finding sakura blossoms had been damn near impossible at this time of year, but his efforts had eventually been rewarded. It was something they had always shared, after all, besides the swimming and the competition – a small, private bond that many were not aware of.  


      He had filled his first notebook some weeks ago and left that as well, wrapping it tightly in oilcloth and binding it with string in a traditional manner. It was hardly a permanent method, but it was enough to meet his purposes.  
      With nothing else left to do, he took a seat at the foot of the stone, his thoughts incomprehensible as the waves grew and dissipated in endless cycles.  


      “I’ll never stop missing you, you know,” he began after many minutes, his voice hardly above a murmur despite the isolation of the area.  


      “I’ll never stop loving you.”  
      The wind picked up marginally, scattering stray pink petals and sending them skipping down the beach.  


      “I’ll never understand why you decided to leave.”  
      A wave crested, hissing as it tumbled in on itself and broke across the shore.  


      “And I don’t think I can ever forgive myself for letting you go.”  
      The grass rustled. The air was crisp out here, clean in his lungs.  


      “You were irreplaceable. You always will be.”  
      His hair blew in his face but he made no effort to catch it, letting it tangle in the light wind.  


      “I lost so much when I lost you, Haru. If I could give anything to have you back-”  
      He paused then, holding the rest of his sentence captive in his lungs before breathing it out in a sigh. What he would give to have him there at that moment, what he would give to be able to press his forehead against Haru’s, to cradle the curve of his jawline between his palms. Not moving, not speaking, only watching those crystalline blue eyes as he drank in his proximity like a narcotic.  
     And yet, even thoughts such as these were not enough to rouse his heart. It lay low in his chest like an an aged beast that had wandered off to find a place to die, unresponsive to any stimulus. 

      In the end, this story ended like all the other fantasies before it. Haru’s touch was only a memory worn at the edges from such frequent handling. Rin’s words were spoken to empty air, his letters were written to the void. His tears had fallen on behalf of a person who was no longer existent – his spirit ached for a personality that was no more than a fading concept.  
      Because the awful, hard truth of it all is that Haru was, while Rin is. Their two planes had been broken and divided past the point of rectification or reunion long ago.  


      Snow began to fall from an overcast sky, melting as it merged with the surface of an uneasy sea and piling in the contours of the sand. There was only the snow, and the wind, and a black granite marker as an audience as a lonely figure wandered back towards civilization, shoulders hunched, hands dug deep into his pockets, shivering from overexposure.  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Wow. It's done.  
> I don't want it to be, but it is and I know it, and extending it beyond this point would be rather futile. It's strange, how the emotions of finishing this tie in with the motif of the entire work - the desire for continuation countered by an irrevocable end. 
> 
> Well.  
> I've been considering doing a counterpart reversing the roles of absentee and survivor set in the first season, after Rin's dramatic "I quit" throw-the-trashcan moment. One of these nights, I'll feel it - maybe tonight, even. Until then, I have catching up to do on my other fics and formatting to do for a more lighthearted Harurin stripper AU.  
> So if you like my writing and if that's something you'd be interested in, feel free to subscribe to my account or follow my tumblr. I'm normally pretty good about posting updates. Obligatory mention to comment, kudo, reblog if you're really impressed. I appreciate it, my goal is to be the best writer on Ao3 and your contributions encourage me. Share it, pass it along, because it's hard to get more readers when there aren't any more updates. 
> 
> Thanks again for reading, hope I didn't make you too upset. And if I did, hopefully it was pleasant. As much of an oxymoron as that is, you fellow fanfic'ers know how it goes.

**Author's Note:**

> i write this when i'm tipsy and i have no proofreader or the patience to do so, so consider this a draft rather than a final product
> 
> leave a kudos or a comment or something if you crei evary tyme. or, you know, if you liked it. you know what, even if you hated it, leave a kudos because you read through to the end and that says something so stop denying your true feelings
> 
>  
> 
> [tumblr: vagabonddiesel](http://vagabonddiesel.tumblr.com/)


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